Surgical or obstetrical procedures present problems to doctors and other hospital personnel because of the requirement that aseptic conditions be maintained prior to and throughout the procedures. One constant problem has been the aseptic gowning of doctors and nurses in preparation for a surgical procedure. In this regard, the problem of closing or fitting the gown has been troublesome. Another current problem is the availability of an isolation gown for hospital use that is inexpensive, disposable and easily put on and adjustably fitted to the wearer.
Normally, a doctor dons a back-closing operating room gown by putting his hands and arms into the sleeves thereof and the gown is pulled up around his body so that it will close in back. Usually some type of fastening means holds the gown closed near the back of the wearer's neck. This has sometimes been a tie strip sewn or otherwise fastened, as by taping, for example, to each neck edge of the gown, with an extended length for tying for comfortable fit. These tie strings hang free and may touch a non-sterile area and become contaminated. They also may require an assistant to secure. A Velcro strip has been employed on facing edges of the neck opening. The wearer then presses the Velcro portions together for a good fit. There is less danger of contamination with a strip of Velcro but the cost is often prohibitive, especially in the case of disposable gowns.
Provision is also made to close the main body portion of the gown around the wearer's body at waist level. This controls the gown material, preventing it from flapping into the zone of operation, bunching, or otherwise interfering with the wearer or persons around the wearer. Traditionally both in surgical gowns and isolation gowns some sort of belt has been employed for this purpose. The belt extends around to the back of the wearer and consequently, if aseptic conditions are to be maintained, an assistant applies the belt around the doctor or other wearer's body. Belts unattached to the gown have been utilized in the past. This requires the handling of two separate items, the gown and the belt, and increases the problem of maintaining aseptic conditions due to the relative ease of accidentally dropping the belt during the belting procedure, etc. More recently a belt folded a plurality of times or rolled throughout a portion between its two ends and positioned within a housing or casing-like holder of the gown has been used. See for example, Hartigan, U.S. Pat. No. 3,648,290. While eminently more desirable than a separate belt, the Hartigan type of belt requires that some sort of housing arrangement be provided to avoid having the belt unfold or unroll and flap about, thereby causing a possible contamination problem. There is, of course, additional cost in manufacturing and applying this type of belt.
A further area where a close fit in hospital gowns is desired, or required for maintenance of sterile conditions, is the cuff area. A doctor puts on surgical gloves which must fit snugly over the sleeve of the gown. For aseptic purposes the sleeves must not slip out of the gloves. To this end, most operating room gowns have a stockinette type cuff stitched to the lower portion of the sleeve for gathering the material and forming a snug-fitting wrist portion. Any manufacturing procedure whereby a separate piece is stitched on a gown adds to the cost of the gown, and this obviously is a disadvantage of the stockinette type cuff.